Comment on Cross-country skiing the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail by Marilyn Miller

It is ironic — and sad — that heavy equipment like the grooming machine is used on this supposedly non-motorized trail.
I think the trail should be renamed as the Sleeping Bear Paved Trailway. For one thing, a 10 foot wide lane of asphalt with wide shoulders, cut mostly straight through once-pristine, cathedral-like forest, is not what a typical National Park visitor thinks of as a “trail.” In fact, the NPS in all their planning documents was careful to call the project a “trailway” rather than a “trail.” And there is no “heritage” left in this permanent scarred area. The historic narrow gauge railroad land artifacts, for example, were bulldozed and leveled. The name Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail is really a misnomer and is misleading to the public. Let’s start calling it the Sleeping Bear Paved Trailway. That’s what it is.